Solve it Once!

Edward Muzio: Hi, I'm Edward Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics. Today I'm going to be talking to you on how to "Solve It Once," in your group problem‑solving sessions.

Group problem‑solving is difficult. If you have ever been part of a team that keeps solving the same problem over and over again, you know how hard it can be to get a problem solved as a team. The hourglass model is a tool you can use to sketch where you spend your time and energy in your group problem solving sessions to increase the likelihood of getting a solution that sticks.

Here's how it works; You notice right away that the model is divided into two parts. The top part is all about the facts. This is the part of the model where you talk about the data and the things you know. Now you start out with a problem. The lines are close together here indicating that you agree there's a problem.

But notice that the lines come apart as the people on the team start to disagree. That's OK as long as you're disagreeing and talking about the facts and the data only; Not about your ideas or solutions. As you disagree for a while, you will eventually come back to some agreement again. This is an agreement on the data. This is the shared data set. And this means that everyone, now, is on the same page with what we know.

Only then do you move into the second part of the model, which is about interpretation. Which I will abbreviate. Interpretation, now we're starting to talk about, "What does the data mean?" Again, we will start to disagree over what it means, and as we move along, we'll hopefully move into a final agreement upon solution. This is what we should actually do.

If we put a clock on this, here's how it should look. The first 50% of time in the meeting should be spent on just the facts, just the data, just what we know. Then, about 30% of the time should be spent discussing possible interpretations, and disagreeing over interpretations. Only the last 20% of the time should be spent actually discussing a solution.

Let's take an example of this: Let's say we have the financial sub‑committee of a board of directors. The board's concerned over revenue, and it's the financial sub‑committee's job to come back with some recommendations.

Let's say we have a one hour meeting. That means we should spend the first 30 minutes of the meeting just talking about the facts. "What are the revenue streams?," "What are the previous revenue streams versus today's revenue streams?," "What are the trends over time?," "What other sources of income do we have?" et cetera... until we have that shared common database.

Then we should spend about 18 minutes talking about what the data means. "What do the trends tell us?," "What are our strong points?," "What are our weak points?," "What are the likely next things to happen?"

And only about the last 12 minutes should be spent talking about the actual solution, the actual recommendations, and coming to an agreement. Now, if 12 minutes doesn't sound like enough time to talk about solutions; That means one hour is not enough time to talk about the whole meeting. You never want to shortchange this first part of the model.

If you do, here's what happens: You start with a problem, and then you start to disagree. Everyone has their own opinion of what they should do, and you end up with a bunch of different possible solutions as everyone pushes for their own idea. Eventually you pick one or more of them, and you implement it.

The problem is that none of these solutions are ever as good as this one. Because these solutions are based on opinions. This solution here is based on the shared intelligence and shared problem‑solving of the entire group.

So, the next time you have a problem‑solving situation in a team, sketch out the hourglass model, figure out the times and use that as a guide to what you do on your team. If you do, you'll be more likely to come to a solution that sticks; more likely to "Solve It Once."